


Better Than

by coraxes



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Getting Back Together, M/M, Morosexuality, Multi, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Polyamory, yes i changed the title what of it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-07-12 13:23:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19946860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coraxes/pseuds/coraxes
Summary: Adrian wants to marry his girlfriend. Sypha wants a divorce. Trevor wants the wife who left him ten years ago to give him another shot.In other words:Sweet Home AlabamaAU, but I’ve only read the wikipedia summary forSweet Home Alabamaand also it’s polyamorous.





	1. Prenuptials

**Author's Note:**

> yes i am giving into hubris and starting another wip for these dorks. yes i know where this is going, no i don't have anything else written, no i didn't use anything from _sweet home alabama_ past the first five minutes. ~~title is from "keep your hands to yourself" by the calling.~~ nvm i changed it.
> 
> content note: trevor’s a recovering alcoholic. it’s not shown very explicitly but it is a major part of the backstory.

Adrian proposed in an airport parking lot, and it was perfect.

Sypha had spent the last six weeks at a dig site in the ass-end of Russia. The whole time she dreamed of curling up in front of a heater, and Adrian was warm enough to do the job as she sat in the airport, making frantic calls to confirm that all her specimens had been shipped to the right lab. That taken care of, Sypha tried to carry all her luggage by herself. Then the handle popped one of her blisters. Adrian was only a little smug as he took her suitcases.

“Do not,” Sypha said, trying to stick a bandage over the raw skin with one hand, “say you told me so.”

Innocently he said, “I wouldn’t. I missed you, by the way.”

Sypha laughed. Adrian had flown out to see her every weekend since she’d left. The benefits of old money; at least he had stopped using his father’s private jet. She hip-checked him as best as she could with a suitcase between them. “I missed you, too.”

As they walked from the airport to where Adrian’s car was parked in a distant lot, they caught up on old news and talked about plans now that Sypha was out of the field for the next few months. Then Sypha remembered some urgent business. “Did you get any more pictures of that stray dog?” She glanced at his full hands. “Never mind, I’ll just look.”

“Don’t,” Adrian began, jerking to a stop in the middle of the aisle, but Sypha already had her hand in his coat pocket. Instead of a phone her fingers bumped a small, velvety box.

“Is this—” she began, yanking it out. Stupid question; it was absolutely a ring box. _Jewelry_ box, she told herself. A jewelry box that had been sitting in Adrian’s pocket.

Through gritted teeth Adrian said, “Give that back.”

Sypha’s eyebrows had risen so far up her forehead she was pretty sure they were about to fly off. “So I shouldn’t open it?” she asked, leaning back, ready to run in case he grabbed for it.

Adrian sighed. Then he carefully set down her luggage and knelt on the damp, sun-warmed asphalt. All the blood in Sypha’s body seemed to rush to her face. “Sypha, can you _please_ give me the damn ring back?” he asked.

Oh god, thought Sypha.

Behind them a van honked. She whirled on it. “WE ARE HAVING A _MOMENT,_ ” Sypha bellowed, eyes already prickling, and shoved the box into Adrian’s hands. “Yes! Fine! Go!”

So that was how they got engaged, both of them crying in the middle of an airport parking lot while an SUV full of tourists attempted to reverse down the aisle. Sypha slid the ring onto her finger as Adrian brushed the gravel off his trousers. The ring was perfect and understated: plain gold, its three small jewels set flush with the edge of the band so it wouldn’t catch on any specimens.

Adrian sniffled. “That actually worked,” he managed, eyes still watering; he was a stupidly pretty crier. Sypha burst into giggles that didn’t stop the whole walk back. It took a lot longer than it should have because they kept stopping to steal kisses, ignoring the weird looks from other passing travelers. But they reached the car eventually; Sypha helped Adrian load the bags, slid into the passenger seat, and clicked her seatbelt into place.

Then Sypha froze. “I need to get a divorce.”

“Excuse me?” Adrian asked, so proper Sypha would normally have made fun of him. “…Why?”

“Because I got married in high school.” Surprisingly this didn’t seem to reassure Adrian. Sypha flopped back in her seat and wiped the last of her tears from her eyes. “I left him over ten years ago. We haven't spoken since. At first, getting a divorce didn’t make talking to him worth it. And then I just…forgot.” Even as she said it Sypha knew the excuse was flimsy, but it wasn’t like she had a better one. Trevor hadn’t been part of her life at university. It had been easy to occupy herself with getting degrees, keep pushing the small matter of her failed marriage to the “take care of later” pile.

Frowning, Adrian turned over the key fob in his hands. “Are you afraid to talk to him? I could have some of Father’s people track him down, get him to sign any paperwork—”

The image of an army of Ṭepeṣ lawyers versus Trevor burst into her mind in glorious detail. It made her heart lurch and her mouth pull up into a grin at once. “No, it wasn’t like _that_. He wasn't abusive or anything. Trevor and I were…” Young, stupid, lonely. She always thought she was done caring about Trevor until something happened to dredge up that particular tangle of weeds. Though usually the dredging wasn’t this dramatic.

She didn’t leave Trevor because he was an alcoholic. Sypha had gone back and forth on that often enough, and now she felt pretty confident telling it to herself. The alcohol was part of it, but Trevor had been an alcoholic since before they started dating at sixteen. The main reason she left was Trevor himself.

They were just starting high school when they met. Trevor had moved in with a new foster parent whose trailer was right next to Sypha’s grandfather’s. At first she’d felt sorry for him. He was a brand-new orphan, but she’d been one for years; she could help. But Trevor hated her sympathy. So she started bullying him into doing his homework instead. He wasn’t smart, but he didn’t care that she was, let her ramble on for hours about her plans for the future. He didn’t pick fights so much as throw himself into the middle of them; after a few months he’d gathered a little fanclub of nerds who he’d saved from a beating. He was a rude bastard, but so was Sypha, and instead of getting offended when she picked on him he’d just pick on her harder. When he moved to a new foster family two hours away Sypha worried he’d forget about her. He didn’t; he kept coming back.

Trevor proposed a week after his eighteenth birthday. He bought the ring with the first stipend he got from his trust fund, and had to live in a tent until the next one came in because his foster mother kicked him out before Sypha could bring him a birthday cake. Her parents had gotten married when they were nineteen and twenty-one, so Sypha hadn’t thought twice about accepting; they got married in city hall a few days later.

But after they graduated things changed. Sypha went to university; Trevor didn’t. That in itself was fine. She hadn’t expected him to. School had never been his strong suit. With his stipend he didn’t really have to work, either. That wasn’t _great,_ but Sypha could live with it. If he wanted he could have been a stay-at-home dog dad. At least then he would have been doing something besides drinking.

But he didn’t. He spent all his stipend money on liquor, and when Sypha threw the budget in his face he started buying cheap liquor in the same amount. He drunk-dialed Sypha in the middle of class. Got thrown in jail a couple of times for drunk and disorderly. She tried to help, pushed him into rehab or therapy, dragged him out to concerts and farmer's markets, tried to get him actual hobbies, even did the long game where she slowly replaced his vodka with water. But there was only so much Sypha could bully him into. And there was only so much bullying she _wanted_ to do; near the end she felt more like a frustrated mother than a doting wife. He hadn’t wanted to grow up, hadn’t wanted to change, hadn’t wanted to do anything. She'd known that he got access to _all_ his family money at twenty-one instead of just the stipend; she couldn't stick around to see him waste it.

So she told him to call her when he got his shit together, and she left.

“Sounds like an asshole,” Adrian said when she finished, looking relieved.

“He was,” Sypha agreed. It wasn't _all_ Trevor was, but defending him seemed counterproductive to reassuring Adrian. She twisted the band around her finger. Her old engagement and wedding rings were sitting in a jewelry box on her dresser. She hadn’t known what to do with them. In the back of her mind she had always hoped Trevor would find a way out of the pit he’d dug for himself, but it had been long enough that she doubted he ever would. “Well, I’ll have to get him to sign the divorce papers. At least we’ve been separated long enough, it shouldn’t be too hard.” She leaned over and rested her forehead against Adrian’s shoulder. “Ugh, I’m sorry. If I’d known you were going to propose so soon—”

“You stole the ring, remember?" Adrian said ruefully. "But we can fix this. Do you still know where he lives?”

Sypha nodded. Their old house was hard to forget. “I want to talk to him in person, first.” He deserved that much. And…alright, she might not be in love with Trevor anymore, but she still cared about him. She didn’t want the first place they met in a decade to be a courtroom. “It’ll probably take some persuading. He can be stubborn.”

Adrian pressed a kiss to the top of her hair. She heard the smirk in his reply. “So can we.”

Sypha shrugged and tried to smile. Sure, they could be persistent—but he didn’t know Trevor.

* * *

Once upon an evening dreary, Trevor lay weak and weary on his couch and tried to figure out why the fuck he wasn’t asleep. He’d spent most of the day on one of the trails around the manor, hiked ten miles through air like microwaved soup. By the time he staggered back to the refitted groundskeeper’s cottage where he lived, he was sunburnt and sweaty and starving, barely managed a cold shower and a bag of jerky before he passed out on the couch. According to his phone, he’d only been asleep for half an hour. What the hell had woken him, then? He didn’t need to piss.

Someone pounded hard on his front door and he winced. Right, that would do it. “’Tis some bastard, rudely tapping…” Trevor rubbed his eyes and threw himself off the couch. He was just wearing boxers but whatever, his visitors could deal with an eyeful; the manor’s staff knew not to bother him and no one else he knew would visit. Ignoring the whispered exchange on the other side of the door, Trevor unlocked it and peered through. “What do you—oh.”

Sypha looked different. Of course she did. They’d both been kids when she left. Her hair was shorter, cropped around her ears. She’d lost the last bit of baby fat around her face but had gained weight besides that; she looked sturdier, less waifish. New wrinkles lined her eyes. But they were the same stupid bright blue, and she still blushed easy as anything when she looked him over.

She was back. _She’d come back._

“Hi,” Trevor managed.

Sypha smiled tightly and that was wrong, that wasn’t her happy smile. “Hi. Can we come in?”

Trevor had sort of noticed that she had someone with her. But as soon as he saw Sypha, Trevor’s brain short-circuited; he hadn’t taken in much about the other person. He glanced at the other man now: tall, long blond braid, dressed like a hipster. Trevor couldn’t figure out if he was handsome or not. The other man’s features were oddly sharp, almost alien. He was also looking at Trevor like he wanted to eat him. Not even in the fun way.

Let it never be said that Trevor was completely stupid. He leaned against the doorframe and wished he’d gotten dressed. “Any chance this is a happy, getting-back-together type of visit?”

Sypha sighed and ripped off the band-aid. “Trevor, this is Adrian. My fiancé.”

“Pleasure,” said the hipster, lip curled.

Oh.

Okay, then.

“Make yourself comfortable. I’m going to put on some trousers.” He turned to his room and wondered how much it would hurt his case if he doubled back to slam the door into Adrian’s stupid alien face. Probably a lot.

 _C’mon, you fucking idiot. What did you think was going to happen?_ He shut his bedroom door and rifled through his drawers. Sweatpants? Could he convince his wife to take him back in sweatpants? Sypha had never minded them. She’d always liked his arse in jeans though.

What _had_ he thought was going to happen? For the last several years Trevor had coasted with the vague idea that one day, he’d look at his life and think, _this is it. I’m together enough, I can call Sypha now._ But he’d never reached that point, had he? And of course she hadn’t waited forever. Of course everyone in the world would be tripping over their own dicks to fall in love with Sypha. It was a wonder this was just now happening.

Trevor grabbed a pair of jeans and a holey tourist T-shirt he’d worn for most of a decade, and socks for good measure. His reflection caught his eye on the way out: sunburned, needing a shave, scar stark and obvious, and hair a fucking mess from sleeping on the couch. _Right. Who wouldn’t want to hit this._

The lovebirds were sitting on his couch, closer than they really had to be. Sypha was flipping through the pictures on a digital photo frame. She didn’t seem to notice his approach, but Adrian did; he leaned back to see over Sypha’s shoulder, looked Trevor up and down, and _smirked._

Bastard.

Trevor pulled a kitchen chair across the floor, legs screeching, to rest beside Sypha. Adrian could just go fuck himself. “So. Tell me why you’re back, then.”

Sypha gave him puppy-dog eyes, like, _do you really have to make me say it?_ But she did say it, of course. Sypha never bothered with sparing feelings. She just felt bad about it sometimes. “I want a divorce.”

Didn’t matter that he knew it was coming, or that he hadn’t seen her in ten years, or that she’d been back in his life for less than ten minutes. The words still hit him like a blow to the chest.

Ruthlessly, she continued. “I don’t want money or the house or the manor.” She laid her hand on his arm, warm fingers broken up by a band of cool metal. She had a ring on her finger, of course she did, she’d worn rings around him for two years so it shouldn’t be so unfamiliar. There was a slight sheen in her eyes and a stubborn set to her chin. “We’ve been over for ages, Trevor. It’s time to make it official.”

The thing was—she was right. Sypha had been pretty damn clear about her intentions when she left that day. (He knew it was day because he’d been hungover, the light from the bedroom windows making him nauseous as she filled her suitcases.) If he were, you know, a decent fucking person, he’d laugh it off. He would have moved on himself a long time ago, done her a favor and left her half his inheritance—not like he needed all of it, anyway. He would respect she had a new life and let her get on with it.

“Fine,” Trevor began, and Sypha’s shoulders relaxed.

But Trevor was not a particularly decent person. He had, in fact, repeatedly been informed he was an asshole.

“On one condition.”

And up went the shoulders again. Trevor paused for a long moment, steepling his fingers.

Finally Sypha raised an eyebrow and asked, “Are you keeping me in suspense? Or are you just trying to think of a condition?”

“The first one,” Trevor lied. “I want five dates with you over the next…let’s say month. To catch up, figure out how we’ve changed. At the end of it, if you still want to get married to the pretty boy, I’ll sign whatever paperwork you need.”

“What kind of ridiculous—” Adrian began, at the same time Sypha snapped, “Absolutely not.”

She was blushing again. Trevor leaned forward, ignoring Adrian’s fuming. “Look. I should’ve gotten in touch sooner, obviously, but I’m _better._ I stopped drinking, I’m doing shit with my life and the family funds and everything. So just give me a shot. Five dates, that’s all I’m asking. That’s not even a week’s worth.”

“Are you always this pathetic?” Adrian snarled, and Trevor jerked to attention. “For God’s sake, she’s _moved on._ You know nothing about her life any more than she knows yours. We’re in love, we’re getting married. If you know what’s good for you you’ll take a painless end and move on before my father’s lawyers wring every cent from you.”

Trevor’s eyes narrowed and he bared his teeth. “Your father’s lawyers, hmm? I would’ve pegged you for a mama’s boy.” Adrian froze like a powered-down pretty robot. Sypha drew in a sharp breath. He'd said something wrong, that was her worried face, but Trevor barreled on. “Consider it payback for the last, what, four years of university?” Sypha probably thought she hadn’t noticed her tuition was still being debited. It wasn’t like he had minded; school had been so important to her. Still was, judging by how much she’d gotten published in the years since.

Sypha’s nails dug into his forearm and her other hand curled into a fist. “Fine." Trevor didn’t fist-pump, but it was a close thing. “You get _three_ dates, though, not five. And Adrian’s coming with me.”

Trevor almost protested, but actually? A chance to show that asshole up? He couldn’t resist. “Okay. Three dates. I pick the place, you bring your arm candy.”

“And at the end of it you’re signing the divorce papers, no questions asked,” Sypha agreed. Her eyes gleaming with determination this time instead of unshed tears. She spat in her palm, Trevor did the same, and they shook hands solemnly. (Adrian made a disgusted noise. Ha, so he hadn’t seen _this._ )

God help him, he really wanted to just haul her in and kiss her.

“We’ll see about that,” said Trevor.

“You realize you sound like a third-rate comic book villain?” Adrian asked. Trevor ignored him.


	2. Courtship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note that for the purposes of this fic, Wallachia is basically being treated as a fictional US/Britain/Romanian hybrid instead of an actual historical place. because like, this is my dumb modern AU and I don't feel like researching for it past a quick google search. sorry not sorry.
> 
> (in my defense the show isn't exactly historically accurate either. wallachia/romania was orthodox, not roman catholic.)
> 
> content note: discussion of lisa's murder, involving gun violence/misogynistic themes

Trevor bounced on his toes as he scanned the crowd for signs of Sypha or her hanger-on. As the last rays of the run faded, late-summer chill was setting in; he shivered and wished he’d brought his coat. Or worn anything besides a t-shirt and shorts. Apparently he was going to be perpetually underdressed around Sypha, these days. Maybe once they’d gotten into the crowd it would warm up.

He spotted Adrian first—no surprise there, he was about ten feet tall, and his hair was positively metallic under the streetlights. His angular face caught the shadows, ghoulish but somehow…interesting.

Oh. Goddammit. He wouldn’t start thinking Sypha’s asshole fiancé looked _interesting_. He just _wouldn’t._

It helped that Adrian was wearing a white turtleneck and dark slacks that made Trevor think of Edward Cullen. (Sypha had dared him to read the books—she wanted to talk about them with someone, and then a few months later she turned a corner and started making fun of them instead.) So: down, Trevor’s stupid dick. The whole bisexual thing was pretty new, but he had to have better taste than _that._

So he stopped starting at Adrian and focused on Sypha instead. She wasn’t dressed for a date, Trevor could tell that right away—she was wearing a bright blue hoodie with ARCHAEOMETRY @ UW emblazoned across the chest in eye-gouging yellow, and what looked like a pair of men’s basketball shorts that hung past her knees. It was the sort of thing she would sleep or run to the corner store in, and she had definitely picked it on purpose.

See? Trevor could read signals.

He waved from his place by the popcorn stand, awkward with the folding chairs tucked under his arm. He’d only brought two but Sypha had thought to bring a third, of course. She had her eyes narrowed as she took in the square, maybe trying to figure out what had changed since she’d last been there. (Answer: not much, except a few new paint jobs.) Then she spotted him and they pushed through the gathering crowd, Sypha looking wary and Adrian too haughty for words.

“Hi, Sypha,” said Trevor. “Arm candy.”

Adrian raised an eyebrow. “Repressed attraction to men? You really are the whole package.”

“ _Adrian,_ ” Sypha hissed in her _we-talked-about-this_ tone _._

“Shut the fuck up, it’s not repressed,” Trevor snapped before he could think better of it. Great start, really great, this was going to be a wonderful night. God, why did he ever try to do anything.

“We _talked_ about this,” Sypha continued— _ha_ —and then whirled on Trevor. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah, I mean, it was a recent development.” Sypha raised an eyebrow. Trevor focused on that to eliminate any chance of looking at the boyfriend. “Not that I’ve been with any guys, seeing as how I’m _married,_ but—”

Sypha ignored the last pointed sentence and focused on another detail. One he’d really hoped she wouldn’t notice in the low light. “And what happened to your face?”

“Bar fight?” Adrian suggested.

Trevor flipped him off.

“There are children present.”

 _Then maybe you shouldn’t be such a huge dick._ “They gotta learn sometime.” Trevor poked at the bruise near his jaw. He had hoped it would fade faster, but it had only turned from blue-black to a disgusting brownish green over the past few days. “There was this dickhole priest at the farmer’s market, we got into an altercation, I won, long story, don’t ask.” Why a priest walked around with bodyguards, Trevor still wasn’t sure.

Sypha looked as if she was definitely going to ask, so Trevor forged on. “Moving the fuck along…welcome to Scares on the Square.” He gestured at the crowd gathering in front of the market’s makeshift stage. “Or welcome back, Sypha.”

Scares on the Square was a city tradition, dating back to well before the foster system had shoved Trevor back into the neighborhood. Sypha had been the one to introduce him to it. On Saturdays in September and October, the city would set up a giant projector in the middle of the market downtown and play classic horror movies. Free to the public, but food trucks and concession stands made bank. Besides a few technical upgrades, it had been the same for as long as Trevor could remember.

“What’s playing tonight? … _Nosferatu._ ” She rolled her eyes and Trevor tried to bite down on his grin. “ _Trevor.”_

“’S a classic,” he said, grin widening at Adrian’s baleful glare. “Anyway, I wanted to watch _Saw,_ but the committee’s full of wusses. It’s about to start but I’ll hit up concessions if you want to sit down. We’re going to dinner afterward, though.”

“We are?” Sypha asked as Adrian whined, “ _Really_?”

“Yeah. How long since you’ve been to Sylvie’s?” Trevor prodded. He elbowed her lightly, hands in his jacket pockets, and froze. Was that still allowed? But Sypha only shoved him back. “Too fucking long, right?”

Her tongue poked at her lower lip. “Yes, yes, fine,” she said. “No popcorn, then. Let’s go set up before someone takes our spot.”

 _Our_ spot. Trevor bit down on a smirk. Sypha grabbed his elbow and Trevor’s stomach jolted a little at the contact before he saw she was holding Adrian’s hand, too, dragging them both forward to the edge of the square by a giant statue of some Belmont or another. Honestly, thank god the city was big enough and he was enough of a recluse that he never got recognized. After a little digging he’d found Adrian Ṭepeṣ pretty easily in tabloid headlines, but after the rest of his family had died Trevor had managed to stay out of the spotlight.

They set the chairs down—Adrian gave him the evil eye when he realized Trevor had fully intended to let him sit on the cobblestones, and Sypha rolled her eyes but wordlessly opened the chair they’d brought. So far everything had gone pretty easily, but once they’d actually sat down Trevor felt the awkwardness set in.

“So, uh,” he tried, “your grandfather says hi.” Andrei hadn’t actually said anything of the sort, but he couldn’t come up with anything better at the moment.

“You’ve been talking to my grandfather?” Sypha asked, sounding almost _offended_ for some reason.

Trevor awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, I mean. Not for a while, but after he had the heart attack…” He shrugged. He was trying to show off, dammit, not get on her bad side. Besides, Sypha’s grandfather had always been good to him. Fed up a lot, especially right before and after Sypha left, but he never rubbed anything in Trevor’s face. He’d gone to see Andrei in the hospital a few years after their marriage had dissolved and they’d never fallen out of touch since. “He’s a good man,” Trevor added defensively. “I’m allowed to talk to him.”

“He never _said_ anything,” Sypha snapped, frowning ferociously.

“I asked him not to.” And he’d avoided talking about Sypha as much as he could.

In hindsight: stupid decision.

Luckily, before Trevor could stick his foot into his mouth any further, the projectors flared to life.

Once the movie started rolling, it was surprisingly easy to feel like nothing had changed. Sypha still had a habit of answering back to the characters on the screen, and Trevor tended to MST3K things, so they quickly began annoying all the other moviegoers.

But there were still moments of _oh, yeah, shit,_ where he’d look over in anticipation of a comment and see she was saying something to Adrian and not him. Or notice her hand on Adrian’s knee. At one point Adrian met Trevor’s eyes over Sypha’s head, and he didn’t have to say anything or even do that stupid smirk for Trevor’s stomach to drop and his face to heat up.

Sypha noticed him looking, glanced up at Adrian—he raised an eyebrow and Sypha let a breath out. Shrugged and glanced at Trevor, _you brought this on yourself._

Trevor sank into his chair and propped his chin on his hand. Because, yeah. He kind of had.

But she leaned over a few moments later to whisper in his ear about Orlok’s prosthetics, and her hand was curled above his elbow and her breath was warm on his face, and it wasn’t—it wasn’t _nothing._

* * *

As Adrian might have expected from the ridiculously quaint name, Sylvie’s was a hole-in-the-wall diner beside what seemed to be a shitty sushi place. Once the film ended, Trevor had insisted on power-walking the few blocks to the place, claiming that they needed to “beat the rush.” Adrian had no idea what rush he was talking about. The place was empty but for a few cooks and servers filming TikToks behind the counter. Adrian slid into a booth and grimaced at the faint sheen of grease that stuck to his fingers when he touched the table. Sypha glanced at the menu, jiggling her leg, then ran to the bathroom.

Which left Adrian alone with the soon-to-be-ex-husband.

Great.

Honestly, Adrian still had no idea what Sypha had seen in Trevor. From what Adrian could see he was thoroughly average, awkward. He still had that first glimpse of Trevor, opening the door in his underwear, stuck in his head. It refused to leave. He wasn’t sure why—not like Adrian actually _needed_ to worry about competing with the prick.

But Sypha had told him to, quote, “try not to talk to him like he’s shit on your boots.” So Adrian glared at the menu for several minutes, barely processing its text. Not that he needed to. It was all typical greasy-spoon fare, except for an inexplicable Greek section.

Finally a bored-looking teenager noticed their presence. “Hey!” she yelled over the counter, “drinks?”

“Coffee and water!” Trevor yelled back.

“Water,” Adrian said, and started to tap Sypha’s spot and add, “and a Coke for her,” at the same time Trevor said, “and a Coke.”

Trevor scowled. Adrian was seized by the urge to stick his tongue out at him.

The server came and went with the drinks. Really, why was Sypha taking so long? It had been at least ten minutes.

“So she’s branched out to hogging public bathrooms now,” Trevor said. Before Adrian had the chance to ask if he _really_ wanted to talk about Sypha’s bathroom habits he continued, “She used to keep a whole fucking library stacked up on the toilet tank. Never seemed to realize she could just take them out of there with her.”

Adrian had no idea how to reply to that. Luckily his phone screen lit up: Sypha had messaged him the result of her _What Famous Movie Monster Are You?_ quiz. Somehow she’d ended up with Mothra. He snorted and, before thinking better of it, showed it to Trevor.

“Jesus Christ,” Trevor muttered. A too-soft smile pulled at his mouth.

“Smartphones have dumbed us all down, it seems,” Adrian said solemnly.

Trevor let out a short bark of laughter and fell silent, and Adrian figured that would be their only positive interaction of the night. He was pretty much right, because after another few minutes of fidgeting Trevor said, “Hey, look, I didn’t recognize you. When I said the mama’s boy thing.”

Adrian stared at him, waiting for more, but nothing was forthcoming. His lip curled. “If that’s supposed to be an apology…”

“You know it is,” Trevor snapped. “Don’t be a prick.”

Four years ago, Adrian’s mother had been shot in the reproductive health clinic where she worked a few times a week. She hadn’t died there, though. The ambulance had taken her to the hospital where she had spent every other moment of her life, where she’d rotated as a medical student and worked through her residency, where everyone knew her face if not her name. And she’d died in the middle of the emergency department.

That would have been bad enough. But of course Vlad Ṭepeṣ couldn’t go without his revenge. If he’d made sure someone knifed the shooter before he made it to trial, that would have been one thing. (And he did definitely do that.) But he hadn’t earned the nickname _Dracula_ by playing fair.

He bought the hospital Adrian’s mother had given her whole life to, had died in, and he drove it into bankruptcy within a few months.

Shortly afterward, Adrian managed to denounce his father and get disowned in the same interview. It had been a long couple of years after that.

He and his father had—sort of—made up, and media attention had died down considerably after that first firestorm. So he supposed he couldn’t blame Trevor for not recognizing him. Still a piss-poor excuse for an apology, though.

“It’s an attempt,” Adrian allowed. “Aren’t you an orphan? Shouldn’t you be more sensitive?”

“Please, I’m not even sure you’re human,” Trevor snapped. Adrian rolled his eyes and Trevor added under his breath, “Christ, I don’t know how she could stand you.”

“Clearly I was at _least_ a step up.”

Trevor leaned forward across the table, jaw set in a stubborn scowl. It made Adrian want to grab him, pin him back against the booth—

Wow, alright, that was a little strong. He was too busy trying to detangle his thoughts to catch whatever pissy thing Trevor said. Thankfully at that moment Sypha slipped back into the booth. “Oh, good,” she said, picking up her menu. “You haven’t started punching yet.”

“I wouldn’t—” Adrian began, as Trevor said, “ _Hey_ —”

Ignoring them both, Sypha asked, “Are the chocolate chip pancakes still as good?”

“Yeah, but banana’s better,” Trevor said.

“Are _not.”_

“Yeah, they are!”

Sypha sighed, her smile wide and genuine. “You have no taste,” she said fondly.

Adrian blinked. The whole exchange had the feeling of a well-worn argument, the sort of conversation they might have had every week for all the years they had spent together. The image of the two of them, much younger, showing up to the little diner for a hangover breakfast and fighting over pancakes manifested in his mind. He had to mentally shake it out. Their history didn’t _matter,_ he had to remind himself. There was no reason for him to be worried. He cleared his throat. “So, Trevor, what do you even do?”

Trevor bristled at Adrian’s tone. “Hike, fix up the manor grounds, that kind of thing.” He gulped down half a glass of water. “Oh, and run the Belmont foundation, I guess. Mostly I pay people to do that one for me.”

Wait a moment.

“You’re Trevor _Belmont,_ ” Adrian said slowly. “The last living Belmont. Of _those_ Belmonts.”

Trevor sucked on his straw so hard the ice made an obnoxious noise in protest. “Yep.” He glanced at Sypha. “What, you never told him?”

“You live in a _groundskeeper’s cottage,_ ” Adrian said, realizing. He had known they were near the Belmont manor—the gates were hard to miss—but of course they must’ve been on the land.

“Someone’s got to groundskeep.” Trevor shrugged. “’Sides, the manor’s too big to live in. I’d have to walk a mile every time I needed to shit.”

The server vaulted over the counter to take their orders—spinach pie for Adrian, pancakes for Sypha and Trevor, because apparently he was the only one not reliving his teen years here. “The manor looks a lot better than I remember,” Sypha offered after she left. “So the fire damage got fixed up?”

Trevor nodded awkwardly. “Yeah, it does tours and things now. And the foundation runs out of it, so.” He shrugged.

He owned the Belmont Foundation. For fuck’s sake. Adrian had _worked_ with scholarship students from the foundation before and still hadn’t put the pieces together. It wasn’t even the kind of organization he could pick on. They ran a foster home right out of Belmont manor, pushed for better legal protections for children and dependents, handed scholarships out like candy to underprivileged kids. It was the sort of thing he’d always wanted his father to do with the family money. Dracula, of course, hadn’t wanted to hear about it. What little charity he attempted stopped after Adrian’s mother had died.

“I…didn’t realize that was you,” Sypha said, an inexplicably guilty frown pulling at the corner of her mouth.

Trevor snorted. “The fuck else did you think it was? I can do things.”

Sypha nodded. There was a gentle _thump_ as she lightly kicked Trevor under the table. “I know.”

When the server arrived with their dinners, Adrian hoped that would buy them some silence, but after a moment (and with his mouth full) Trevor asked, “So…how was Russia?”

“Not creepy at all,” Adrian muttered.

“It’s all over the university website,” Trevor snapped back, and pointedly turned back to Sypha. “So what’s the deal, did you find Speaker grave sites or what?”

Of course, with an opening like that Sypha couldn’t help but start talking about her work. Trevor egged her on with questions between bites of pancake. Adrian had heard most of it before, and Sypha kept having to backtrack to explain the basics, so some of it he tuned out to just…watch them. There was that feeling again, like he was looking at a window into their past. Like he’d been a placeholder, all this time, and now he was the odd one out.

Which was ridiculous. Of course.

“—and then if I survive the gala next month, I should be able to get enough funding to go back for a while,” Sypha said with a little eye roll. She liked social events and usually ended up spearheading bar crawls for her entire department, but every time there was a fancy party coming up she would complain for weeks. Which reminded Adrian: he still needed to get their suits.

“A gala? Sounds fancy,” Trevor said around half a plate of bacon.

 _How_ he could run a nonprofit and never attend a gala was beyond Adrian. “Does the Belmont foundation never have those?” he asked, injecting as much scorn as he could into his voice.

Trevor snorted. “God, no. The last dance I went to, someone threw up in the punch and then Carmilla tried to set the school on fire.” He pointed his syrupy fork at Sypha. “Surprised _you’d_ still go to fancy parties after that.”

Sypha grinned. “None of them are that exciting.”

Had their whole school been full of delinquents? “…Somehow, I think I had a more normal childhood than either of you.”

“And your dad’s fucking Dracula,” said Trevor, rolling his eyes.

Maybe Trevor’s crassness had been wearing off on him over the last few hours, because before he could stop himself, Adrian said, “Actually, that was my mother.”

Sypha blinked. Trevor stared.

 _Sorry, Mother,_ Adrian thought, knowing that somewhere in the cosmos she was laughing her arse off.

And then Trevor burst into loud laughter. Something clicked then, in Adrian’s head, and he could see for a moment why Sypha had liked him so much— it was impossible to see Trevor look actually _happy_ and not want to pry a little bit more of that out of him.

He was, Adrian noted in a daze, a really very attractive man. If you liked men who looked like lumberjacks. Which apparently he did.

“You actually have a sense of humor,” Trevor said wonderingly, tears at the corner of his eyes.

Alright—moment over, he was being a prick again. Thank God.

* * *

It was getting to be _really_ cold as they walked out of the diner. Stupid Wallachia. Trevor enviously eyed Adrian’s sweater.

“Do you want to borrow my sweatshirt?” Sypha asked, touching his goose-bump-y arm. Trevor clenched his teeth so he wouldn’t shiver.

“Nah, it’s fine. Car’s not far.” Trevor tightened his grip on the folding chairs and wished he at least had gloves—his fingers were going numb. “Where did you guys park, anyway?”

He was asking Sypha, but Adrian answered. “We’re in the Castle Street garage.”

“Great,” said Trevor without much enthusiasm. This was his least-favorite part of any social encounter, where the main event was basically done but they still couldn’t get away; he’d never figured out how to stop feeling awkward. “So am I.”

He expected to be third-wheeling behind Sypha and Adrian—the sidewalk wasn’t exactly being enough for three—but to his surprise Sypha fell back into step with him. He saw Adrian stiffen, long limbs somehow more ungainly and angular now that he was alone. “I know what you were trying to do,” Sypha said quietly. It still seemed to echo off the surrounding brick and cement. “And tonight was fun, Trevor, but reminding me of our old dates isn’t going to change anything.”

Right in the gut. “Knew we should’ve walked around Wal-Mart for two hours instead,” Trevor said. “Remember when you got stuck in the bin of bouncy balls?”

“Because you dared me to climb in there!” Sypha protested, so indignant Trevor had to grin.

And, alright, maybe she had a point. His big plan had seemed a lot less stupid while he was laying it out. And while tonight had been fun, _good_ even, she held herself apart from him more than she used to; even when she forgot herself she was still two steps back. There was an awkwardness between them, and he didn’t know how he could get past it in only two more dates.

Unless he gave himself a little more time on the next one.

“So,” Trevor said slowly, “next weekend alright?”

Sypha nodded. “Same time?”

Counting driving time, hiking time, setup…probably not. “Eh, might be a little earlier. I’ll get in touch.” She still had the same cell phone number. He’d worried every time he switched phones that he might lose that last little connection—not that it ended up mattering.

She nodded again and chewed on her bottom lip, wrapping her fingers around his arm as her steps slowed to a halt. From the corner of his eye Trevor saw Adrian take a few steps forward before he realized they’d left him. “I’ve missed you, you know? I wish you’d called or something.”

If he had, what would it have changed? At what point would it have actually _mattered_? It had taken him years to actually quit drinking—even when he’d decided to get sober he still had a tendency to fall off the wagon. And it had been almost as long before he figured out he could do something with his money besides sit on it. Trevor had no idea when she’d met Adrian, what the point of no return on that had been.

But still. He couldn’t help but wonder.

“Yeah, well,” he said, and had to clear his throat so he didn’t choke up. “Makes two of us.”

Sypha sighed and looked away from him, but he could have sworn she seemed…wistful. “And I think you know this whole plan won’t work,” she said, low and sure. “But after this is over, I want to be friends again, at least.”

 _Give me another ten years,_ Trevor thought. _And God, don’t invite me to the wedding or I really will fall off the wagon._ “We’ll see,” he said instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the long wait between updates! I moved and started grad school on top of working full-time, so finding time to write was...difficult, and I expect it will continue to be difficult with the whole "grad school" thing. but I plan to finish this by the end of the year, and I promise I will not leave it to die.
> 
> comments and kudos are, as always, much appreciated.


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